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Saturday, 12 January 2013

I was lucky enough to go skiing just before Christmas to Alpe D'Huez in France with my dad. The snow before Christmas isn't always reliable, but a couple of weeks before we were due to go there was a huge early season snowfall and more predicted so we booked.

Not really know how to choose a ski resort I selected Alpe D'Huez on the basis that we found a cheap chalet deal to Chalet Edelweissse. It turned out to be a pretty fantastic week.

The snow was deep and fresh with fresh snow most night, the resort was pretty empty which meant no queues for the lifts and the temperatures weren't too cold. The only thing we could have asked for was a bit more sun, but that would have just been greedy!

At the top of La Serene

Dad has been a member of the Ski Club of Great Britain for a few years now and convinced me to join this year. The main benefit of the Ski Club is that they have a guide in lots of resorts around Europe who you can ski with if you are a member. We skied with the resort guide Dave for five out of the six days and I really enjoyed the additional camaraderie that skiing in a group brought and it made the holiday more relaxing as you weren't planning your route around the resort each day as someone else does that for you.

For a couple of days during the holiday I recorded my ski data using aps on my phone. One day I tried the free Alpe D'Huez app which records some basic data like total distance, number of runs, time etc... unfortunately the app doesn't allow you to export any data. Another day I used the Garmin Fit app which I also have on my phone. It isn't designed for skiing, but has some added functionality like maps etc... The Garmin app is supposed to export data but wouldn't sync to my online account sadly.

I only had one major wipe out of the week landing on my head (luckily wearing my new helmet!) and the apps told me I was doing 55kph at the time. Luckily no permanent harm done, just a headache and sore neck for a couple of days.

Team Ski Club GB

The only downside of the skiing, crash aside, was that not all lifts in Alpe D'Huez were open, even though there was enough snow. Being the first week of the season, and not many people in the resort, there were rumours going round that the ski lift company was trying to save money. We had skied every run in the resort after the first four days and this made the last couple quite monotonous. Having the additional lifts open would have made a difference (although Alpe D'Huez isn't the biggest resort at the best of times).

A final hat tip to our chalet hosts Franky and Luke. We were looked after really well all week with great food, friendly service and afternoon cakes when we got back from a hard day skiing.